O' Artful Death

"O' Artful Death" immediately appealed to me because Sarah Stewart Taylor combined a couple of topics in which I have more than a passing interest. The first is visiting cemeteries and checking out really old gravestones, which I can trace back to stumbling across the Granary Burial Ground in Boston where I discovered John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, Peter Faneuil, and the victims of the Boston Massacre lie in rest. But what I remember is the tombstone for a doctor who came from England to treat an epidemic and ended up dying from it and the various symbols inscribed on colonial tombstones. So I can understand Sweeney St. George's interest in the iconography of death, and when she discovers a macabre graveyard statue of a beautiful nude woman lying in a boat that defies the conventions of the time and whose artist is unknown I can appreciate her wanting to solve the mystery. The second area of resonance is that the strange monument in question is found in a graveyard in Vermont's historic Byzantium Art Colony, because I have taught a course on American utopian communities. While the places we studied were rarely artistic enclaves, there is an affinity between the two, plus I have been to Taos, New Mexico, so there. Taylor's story is at a disadvantage because we do not get to actually see the paintings and sculptures that are key to the narrative, but that has not exactly stopped Dan Brown from being successful (although I note there are now illustrated versions of "The Da Vinci Code" available that allow you to see the same things as Robert Langdon; then again Brown's art and artifacts are real). This aspect is especially intriguing because the Byzantium of the past is as much of a part of the story as the Byzantium of today. It is winter break and Sweeney, a 28-year-old college professor, travels from Cambridge to Byzantium to spend the holiday with friends and see what she can discover about the grave of Mary Elizabeth Denholm, who reportedly drowned a century earlier. Before making the trip Sweeney had contacted one of the locals in Byzantium, Ruth Kimball, about Mary and her graveyard statue, and learns that there is an old story that Mary was murdered by one of the artists in the art colony and the whole thing was hushed up. Sweeney is intrigued but before she even leaves on her trip Ruth Kimball is found dead in the graveyard, apparently a suicide and our heroine cannot shake the suspicion that somehow this death and her inquiry are related. But how could her questions about a gravestone get a woman killed? Despite that suspicion one of the strengths of Taylor's first mystery novel is that Sweeney St. George does not spend most of her time trying to figure out if Ruth Kimball was murdered and if so by whom. She is much more interested in who might have murdered Mary Denholm and in discovering who carved her monument than in playing detective, and so it is not until she has reason to believe that her own life might b

College professor Sweeney St. George is looking forward to a nice quiet Christmas break alone in her apartment. But when her friend Toby shows her a picture of a unique gravestone near his aunt and uncle, she can't resist investigating. After all, it'll make a perfect chapter in her book on gravestones of New England.The stone is located in an artist's colony in Vermont dating back to the late 1800's. Rumor is that the young woman immortalized by that stone was murdered by one of the artists, but no arrests were ever made.Even before Sweeney arrives, the woman's great-niece is murdered. Ruth Kimball told Sweeney on the phone about the rumors. Is there a connection between the gravestone, the mysterious death of 115 years ago, and the murder today? If Sweeney wants the truth about this unique stone, she'll have to find out.I was intrigued by the premise of this book when I first heard about it, but put off getting it. That was a mistake. This is a wonderfully written debut. The descriptions make the colony come to vivid life. The style is relaxed, inviting you to sit back and enjoy. I did have problems keeping all the character and the relations to those from the past straight, but with some work I was able to figure it all out. The plot was wonderful, giving us new information but keeping us in the dark until the end with plenty of clues and red herrings sprinkled throughout the book.I've fallen under the spell of this author and series. I can't wait for the next book to come out. I highly recommend you pick up this excellent debut today.

Are your shelves cluttered with mysteries? Have you stopped buying novels or books period just because every horizontal surface at home is covered in perilously spiralling stacks of printed and bound matter that sway in the slightest indoor breeze? Don't worry, because O' Artful Death, a brilliant debut by Sarah Stewart Taylor, is not a book that will make you pause briefly in appreciation for its author's talent and hard work as you place it in what was formerly the refrigerator, lately the chilly annex to your already-considerable library. No, this is the all-too-rare book that will not further reduce the space left for sleeping on your bed because you will want to share it with others, that demands by the inspired construction of its plot, the strength of its characters (especially the immediately indelible Sweeney St. George) and the excellence of its prose to be pressed enthusiastically into the hands of friends and, yes, even strangers; introduce yourself if they seem wary, because they are going to want to track you down and thank you later. Don't count, however, on getting your copy back-they will most likely already have raved about and passed it off to someone else. Truly compelling from start to finish, and I am now left eagerly anticipating Sweeney's next appearance on the page. Highly recommended.

Sweeney St. George is the most interesting mystery heroine I've come across in a long time. As an art historian, she's honed her detecting skills in libraries and museums. She has a a perfect memory; a driving curiosity; and a great eye for social, natural, and historical detail. But what makes Sweeney so compelling is her mix of normalcy and necromancy, of geeky charm and spooky obsession. She is an ordinary single woman, empathetic towards students and new acquaintences, sensitive to slights at dinner parties, ambivalently in love with a good friend. On the other hand, she is, as Keats says, "half in love with easeful death." The daughter of a suicide and fiance of a terror victim, she studies gravestones and is gently consumed by the border between life and death. She spends half her days buried in history and, as an insomniac scotch drinker, half her nights in a sleepless nether world. For her, solving mysteries becomes a way to affirm life by confronting the reality (as opposed to the art) of death. The setting, in a historic Vermont artist colony, is also very interesting, and the plot, though it takes a while to get going, accelerates nicely as the novel goes along. All in all, a great read.

I don't favor a particular genre, I just favor good writing and it's especially delightful to read such terrific writing by a new novelist. Sarah Stewart Taylor doesn't just give us a twisting, puzzling plot, she gives us art, poetry, and an ability to cast a sentence, a paragraph, a scene, a whole story so perfectly that it's just not possible to stop reading it. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and the main character, Sweeney St. George is someone I am looking forward to seeing more of. This mystery is really top notch--in writing, in story, and in mystery!